


A Father's Determination

by winterune



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28104546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterune/pseuds/winterune
Summary: As he tucks her in for the night, Barret recalls the day Marlene was born, and how he vowed to protect her when he found her in the burning wreckage of his home.
Relationships: Barret Wallace & Dyne, Barret Wallace & Marlene Wallace
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	A Father's Determination

**Author's Note:**

> A bit late, but happy birthday, Barret!!

Marlene dozed off beside him, her short cropped brown hair falling over her face as her small arm slipped from the countertop, her head bumping against Barret’s leather bracers. He caught her just in time, supporting her small body with his arm propped over her small back. Tifa chuckled from the other side of the bar. 

“Want me to tuck her to bed?” she asked over her shoulder as she wiped a glass clean and placed it in the cupboard next to the TV. She turned around on her feet with a small smile on her face, then nodded to somewhere behind his back. “They might still want you around.”

By “they”, Tifa meant his team. A group of ragtags who, for better or worse, had joined him on his quest to destroy Shinra. Wedge and Jessie were hollering nonsense on their table while Biggs munched on a pizza, his eyes regarding his friends with quiet amusement. Barret shook his head and stood from his barstool, gently picking his daughter up with his left arm while avoiding any sudden movement that could wake her up. 

“Nah, I’ll do it,” he said. He spared his comrades a quick glance. Their faces were pink from the glasses of liquor spread across their table. Jessie was on her feet, using her pizza slice as a microphone as she sang—in a slurred and incoherent way. An off-key tone made Biggs and Wedge burst into laughter, but Jessie ignored them and continued her singing. Barret gave a soft, amused scoff. “Let them be. They deserve a bit of winding down after all the hard work they’ve put in.”

“I’ll make sure they get home safe after I close up shop.”

Barret nodded his thanks. He went to the pinball machine with Marlene safely tucked against his shoulder. Tifa followed him from behind, moving past the wooden swing door separating the bar and kitchen from the rest of the restaurant. She helped pull the lever at the bottom of the machine. The hidden elevator gave a little jolt as the score display on the machine rolled into ‘777777’. 

“Have a good rest, Barret.” 

Barret replied with a quiet grunt. 

The elevator took them to the secret basement they’d built underneath Seventh Heaven. On any other day, it served as the base for their Avalanche operations. A map of Midgar hung on one side of the room while papers and books were stacked neatly against the concrete wall. The usually chaotic place had been clean on their return, the only things out of place now were their fake identity tags still strewn across the large table. Barret made a mental note to return them to their box. He shouldn’t let Tifa do all the cleaning. 

He strode over to the wooden door next to his punching bag then pushed his free shoulder against it. It swung open with a creak, leading to a short hallway with a door on both sides: a small bathroom to the left and his bedroom to the right. 

The room to the right was dark, lit only by the lone hallway lamp shining through the doorway. Barret made his way to his daughter’s bed, careful on his steps so the wood stayed silent. He pulled her blanket aside and moved to set her down, but just as he bent down, Marlene squirmed. 

“Ssh…” he whispered to her ear. “Sleep, baby girl.” 

He heard her sigh then felt her clutch loosening. Patting her back, Barret cradled the back of her head as he laid her down on her bed, pulling the blanket over her small body and tucking her in. 

Marlene shifted under her blanket, her lips pulled into a frown as her brows furrowed in search for a more comfortable position. Barret gave her shoulder gentle pats. His deep, rumbling voice fell into a now-familiar lullaby. 

_Daddy!_ She’d called him that night after he returned from the upper plate. It had already been past her bedtime, yet she was still there, leaping off the stairs of Seventh Heaven, her grin bright enough to light up the entire Slums. _Daddy, welcome home!_

Had it been four years since Corel burned down and he found her in the ruins of Dyne’s home? Marlene settled onto her side, her hand slipping beneath her pillow as her chest rose and fell in a deep, rhythmic breathing. The irritable lines disappeared from her angelic face. 

Barret caressed his daughter’s face as his face broke into a small, wistful smile. He still remembered the day Eleanor gave birth to a daughter—the little bundle wrapped in a pink floral blanket. 

* * *

“I’m a father!” Dyne shouted in front of his house where Barret had waited for the good news, his voice loud enough to alert the entire village. He ran down the stairs, then hugged Barret with all his might, despite Barret being twice the size he was. “I’m a father, Barret!”

Barret could never find the word to describe the immense joy he’d seen on his friend’s face: the happy tears rolling down his cheeks and the euphoric grin plastered across his face. It was contagious, enough to make even a childless man like him cry with happiness. 

Dyne brought him in, up the stairs and into the little cottage serving as his and Eleanor’s home. Barret's wife, Myrna, was coming out of Eleanor’s room, a bundle in a pink blanket nestled between her arms. She looked up at their approach and told them to keep quiet. Barret had to walk on tiptoes for fear the wood might creak under his heavier weight.

“She was looking for you,” she said at Dyne’s inquiring gaze. Myrna folded the blanket around the baby’s face, then shifted her arms enough for Barret and Dyne to see the newborn. Her lips parted into the most tender smile. “Eleanor wanted you to see your baby girl.”

A girl. Barret peeked into the blanket and saw the cutest baby he had ever seen. Her eyes shut tight, the baby struggled against her blanket bindings as she smacked her lips in search for something to latch on.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Dyne’s voice was gentle, laced with a mixture of pride and joy and a hint of disbelief. Barret smiled. 

“Have you named her?” 

“Marlene.” The answer was instant, as though it had been brimming behind his lips, waiting for someone to ask. “Her name’s Marlene.”

Marlene...

Barret gazed at the round-faced newborn. Her cheeks were chubby and soft. The tuft of brownish hair on her head felt smooth against his rough fingers. Marlene squirmed under his touch, the beginning of a cry erupting from her mouth.

“Ssh…” Myrna cooed, pulling the baby away to rock her in her arms. “You’ll see your Mommy soon.”

But Marlene cried, in the ear-splitting way a baby cried for her mother. Dyne asked to hold her instead, carefully holding Marlene’s head as Myrna transferred her into his arms. His deep voice hummed a soft, lilting lullaby.

Barret recognized the song. The elders said it could make any children go to sleep. His own mother had sung it to him when he was a boy on nights when it had been hard to fall asleep. Barret watched in awe as Marlene’s cries grew quiet, as though entranced by her father’s voice filling the hall.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a knack for dealing with kids,” Barret said. 

Dyne laughed. “You don’t need to sing well, Barret,” he replied. “Just well enough for your child, from the bottom of your heart.”

Barret hadn’t expected such a serious answer, yet his friend had looked so sincere when he spoke that Barret found himself at a loss for words. Marlene’s cries ended, and when Dyne looked up, his beam was so bright it could have lit up the entire room. 

“See?”

He did see. 

The door to Eleanor’s room clicked open and out came the midwife. “You can see her now,” she said. She stepped aside to let Dyne in. Dyne’s smile grew, and he spared Barret and Myrna a quick glance before disappearing behind the door, carrying Marlene with him. 

Silence descended, broken by a muffled delighted squeal coming from inside the room and a baby’s cry following it, cut short as Marlene finally suckled on her mother’s breast. Beside him, Myrna exhaled a deep sigh. A small smile caressed her lips. 

“I want one.”

It was a murmur, so quiet that she had probably meant to speak to herself, but it reached Barret’s ears, and he glanced down at his wife. She had her thin arms folded over her chest. The doctor had deemed her body too frail to carry a child. Barret drew her to his side and squeezed her shoulder in comfort. 

He wanted one too.

* * *

A faint knock on the door jerked him out of his reverie. His throat had closed up. Tears he hadn’t realized he’d shed pricked his eyes, and he blinked them away. Barret looked over his shoulder and found Tifa standing by the door, one hand folded and poised to knock. 

“I wanted to check up on her,” she said in explanation. 

The look on her face told him she’d spotted his tears. He cleared his throat then stood up. Tifa's eyes followed him, but Barret only crossed the hall and entered the bathroom, turning on the tap on the sink and splashed cold water over his face. 

“She wanted to wait until you got home.” Her voice drifted in from the hall. Barret turned off the tap. “She wouldn’t listen when I told her it’s past her bedtime.” 

He moved to the nearby towel rack to wipe his face, then exhaled a quiet breath as he set the towel down. “I know." His murmur echoed against the cold tiles. It sounded loud on his ears. 

Barret closed the door behind him, then leaned against his bedroom's doorway. Marlene looked so peaceful in her sleep. The pink floral baby blanket he'd kept since that day was now held close to her chest. 

When Corel burned down and he lost his childhood friend to the abyss, Barret had rushed home only to find his village in a wreckage. He couldn’t find his wife. He couldn’t find Eleanor. With one arm bleeding and incapacitated, Barret had looked at the ruins of his house with crushing despair, until a single cry pierced his ear. It had come from the rubble of the house next to his. 

Barret had rushed over broken tiles and fallen beams, his boots scraping against concrete and wood. He’d found the crib still whole, nestled between two beams supporting each other in an angle, as though the gods themselves had given mercy to the little baby within it. Marlene had wailed and screamed, her arms flailing and fighting against her blanket as she cried for a mother that wasn’t there. 

Choking back on his tears, he’d gingerly picked up the two-month-old with one hand and held her to his chest, shushing her and rocking her and whispering soothing words to her ear. But Marlene wouldn’t quiet down. Her cries had attracted the attention of the surviving villagers, but none of them was her mother. The lullaby Dyne had always hummed to lull her to sleep came to mind, and Barret had tried singing it himself, even as his voice broke and tears streamed down his face. 

_I’m here_ , he’d wanted to say. _Daddy’s here_. 

“Barret?” 

Tifa's soft call brought his mind back to the present. The concern in her eyes almost made him choke. 

Barret cleared his throat again. “It’s late. You’re not getting back?”

Her gaze pierced him, as though she could see right through his heart. He had never told anyone the details of his past, but that wasn’t anything new. Everyone in the slums had a story or two to tell. He had never asked Tifa what brought her to Midgar himself. 

But then Tifa’s eyes hardened, her jaws set. “We’ll get back at them,” she said. It was a quiet statement, not a question. The response shouldn’t have taken him by surprise, but still he looked at her as though she’d spoken in an alien tongue. Because Tifa had never taken an active part in their operations. Yet now, in a brief moment of weakness, she’d seen his heart and seemed to have erased any doubt from her mind. 

Barret stared at her for one moment longer. Ever since the day they killed his family and made Marlene an orphan, there had only been one goal pulsing in his mind—one lone ray of light guiding him out of his tunnel of darkness. He would destroy Shinra, even if it was the last thing he did. 

Barret’s face broke into a hard, determined grin. 

“‘Course we will.”

**~ END ~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :) Please leave kudos/comments if you find the fic to your liking. Thank you!


End file.
